


Great Grey Matter

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Doomstar Requiem, Show-level language, You're all fine, it's fine, mentions of drug overdose, vaguely supernatural elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 06:52:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8479468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: Not even on his worst nights had his dreams been so visceral. So, what, was he dead? Was he doomed to wander this wasteland forever, Skwisgaar remaining just out of reach for eternity?





	

Toki awoke with a jolt and he was back at the funeral. Smoke wafted from the open crevices of the earth, the stench of burnt flesh heavy in the air. Distant thunder signaled the threat of an incoming storm as dark, languid-moving clouds melded into amorphous shapes.  
  
The wound on his side emanated a dull ache since Magnus stitched it shut, but at this moment he felt nothing. The icy stab of dread twisted in his gut and he whirled, expecting to find the psychotic glare of his captor, the knife glinting in his raised hand. But Magnus wasn’t there. No one was there. Though the area was wrecked, there were no bodies strewn about the ground. The chairs for the attendees were toppled and askew, but unoccupied. Even Cornickelson’s casket was empty. Toki was wearing his suit; he discarded his jacket and pulled his dress shirt from his pants to examine himself. The skin was unbroken. He pawed around his entire torso, trepidation rising in his throat. He stood at the center of the destruction, isolated but unable the shake the feeling he wasn’t alone.  
  
He about-faced, and there he was, the familiar face deflating his anxiety. How long had it been since they last saw each other? Toki’s feet knocked together as he stumbled forward in his eagerness to embrace him, a blatant display of affection he would not attempt under normal circumstances but _none_ of this was normal and he had been so afraid and alone and assured he was going to die and it was _Skwisgaar, finally_ and––wait. Though his hands stilled as though they met something firm, he felt no sensation under his palms. He closed his hands around Skwisgaar’s upper arms and squeezed. The suit jacket sleeves beneath his skin creased but he couldn’t feel the cool fabric, nor the solid flesh and bone beneath it.  
  
He released, tension remounting. This couldn’t be another dream. As Magnus’s cruelty intensified, his dreams became more mundane––lounging around Mordhaus, rifling through channels, arguing over snack selection. He often came to sobbing, furious for believing, even for a moment, he deserved normalcy.   
  
So, what, was he dead? Was this hell? Was he doomed to wander this wasteland forever, Skwisgaar remaining just out of reach?  
  
“I should have sats with yous.”  
  
Skwisgaar’s voice jarred him from his panic-spiral. In his dreams, he couldn’t hear the others speaking––he’d just been aware, as you only can be in dreams, that conversation occurred.  
  
“But I hears you tells dat stupid clowns you wants to sit with Magnus, and I thoughts.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t knows. Dat I should let yous off the leash a littles? Wif all de stuff happening with the bands, I thought if I kepts you too close, I mights lose you, too. Dat was…perhaps…a miscalgugation.”  
  
He laughed self-consciously; on brutal days, the memory of that sound had been the only thing to sustain Toki. His hand closed around the bend of Toki’s elbow, pulsed once, and slid down his forearm, resting on his wrist. And Toki _felt it_ , the gentle graze of Skwisgaar’s rough fingers against his skin, his anxious fidgeting. Not even on his worst nights had his dreams been so visceral.  
  
“Ams dis okay? De touching?”  
  
Abigail did her best when they were down there, but the torment obliterated any chance for him to register physical comfort. Toki almost forgot what it felt like, to be touched without malice.  
  
“Gods, _yes_ , of course.”  
  
He flipped his hand to press his palm against Skwisgaar’s, but as soon as it came, the sensation vanished. He blinked.  
  
Skwisgaar shifted to take Toki’s hand in his own––the sensation returned. Toki barked a laugh. So Skwisgaar had to take the lead. What else was new?  
  
Skwisgaar coughed. “Dis ams…pretty weirds.”  
  
“Ja, no kiddings!”  
  
“I nots sure whats I supposed to says. So…hoooooow you…beens?” His mouth quirked in a nervous smirk. “What’s new?”  
  
“Eh, not much,” he answered. “Gots kidnapped, almost died, mights be a god, you knows how dat goes. What about you?”  
  
“Oh, mes? Pfft, what I gots to complains about?” His smile faltered. “T’ings were pretty, not greats. Without yous.”  
  
He cupped Toki’s face with his free hand, brushing his cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. Toki leaned into the contact.  
  
“I can’ts believe it’s you,” Skwisgaar whispered.  
  
The touch dissipated; Toki opened his eyes and saw the funeral had as well. In its place was his room at Mordhaus, unchanged since the last night he spent there. He laid on his bed, the model airplanes dangling above. There had been a time when nothing brought him greater joy than tearing into a new model to spend a painstaking afternoon constructing it. Now they seemed like relics, their reason for existence––like that of their builder––lost in the ether.  
  
“I stays in your room a lots.”  
  
Skwisgaar dropped beside him, folding one leg beneath himself. His knee pressed gently into Toki’s hip.  
  
“All de guys did, at some point or anothers. But not as much as mes. I means––” he readjusted with grunt “––it amn’ts a contest, but ifs it _was_  a contests, I woulds be the winners.” He cocked his head to the side and smiled. “Deddy bear ams okay, in case you wonderings.”  
  
He _had_ been wondering, but didn’t want to outright _ask_. “Dat’s cool.”  
  
Skwisgaar took Toki’s hand and laid it palm-up onto his thigh, tracing the meaty ridge at the base of his fingers. He skimmed the softened callouses with a quiet reverence.  
  
“How long it been,” he muttered, outlining a particular callous on the tip of Toki’s ring finger, “since you plays?”  
  
“How longs ago was Reykjavik? I lost tracks of de days when I was...” He hesitated, unsure how to describe his experience. “Gones.”  
  
“When you puts out dat book whats almost blows-dup my careers– _t’anks_ for dat, by the ways.”  
  
Toki rolled his eyes. “Oh, builds a sky tunnels and gets over it, you babies! You gots your endorsements back, didn’ts you?”  
  
“I thoughts nots being able to play guitar was de worst thing that coulds happen to me. But den you...uh.” Skwisgaar, never the most articulate, was also coming up empty. His wandering fingers stilled. “Wells. It’s not so bads. Comspartitevly.”  
  
He stood to fish something from his back pocket.  
  
“I broughts you somet’ing. The sounds quality ams shit cause I records it on mine phones whens yous in surgeries.”  
  
Toki squinted in confusion. “Surgeries?”  
  
“Normally I wouldn’ts plays you somet’ing dis rough, but eh. Dis ams special case.”  
  
Toki held his hand out to accept the phone, but Skwisgaar instead placed it on the edge of Toki’s pillow. He futzed with the placement, angling so the speaker was close to Toki’s ear, but the spikes wouldn’t prod his face.  
  
“Thinkings dis might be de new song.” He hooked his foot around the leg of a nearby chair, hauled it toward him and sat. “Maybes. It’s a first drafts.” He hit play.  
  
He was right, the sound quality was rough––he could hear Nathan plodding in the background, and occasionally Murderface chimed in with a cheery request to shut the fuck up. Even with those distractions it was perfect, because of course it was: sweeping and bombastic and triumphant. Skwisgaar dragged his hand across his face, pulling at the corners of his eyes with his thumb and middle finger.  
  
“I wish I coulds just plugs right into my brains so you can hears whats I’m thinkings. Pickle part, it’s gonna bes like, dum-ba-dum-ba-ba-dum.” He tapped out the accompanying rhythm on Toki’s forearm, stifling a yawn.  
  
“Den you comes in like, durrrrrr, durrrrrrr, DURRRRRR.” His gesticulations slowed, his voice growing fainter as he explained. “Den on dis measure...you switch...and it’s like...hggghhhhnnn.”  
  
Toki was used to Skwisgaar dozing off mid-sentence, but rarely when the subject offered him an opportunity to show off. His cheek squished over the fist that supported him, his breath even and low. Toki jabbed at his wrist.  
  
“Skwisgaar?”  
  
His arm gave out and he snorted awake just before his face collided with Toki’s knee. He grinned sheepishly.  
  
“Ha ha. Whoops. Sorries. So den Moidaface will be likes.” He slid his arm along the length of the bed, his hand tucking beneath Toki’s pillow. He settled into his bicep, the top of his head nuzzling Toki’s upper arm. “Who care. Probably makes it up five minute before we records. Fuck. I’m so tireds.”  
  
He sunk back into sleep as quickly as he’d surfaced. Toki swept his hair off his forehead. The golden strands flitted between his fingers, and yet he felt nothing. Skwisgaar sighed and nestled closer into Toki’s deltoid. The short, wayward hairs close to his roots tickled his skin. He felt _that_ , but not the blond rope coiled around his knuckles. Why?  
  
The room melted from existence. A new space emerged; the bathroom of a sallow hotel room, the shower head green with oxidation. Toki perched on the lip of the tub, his reflection blurry in the condensation-streaked mirror. He was _young_ , maybe 20, his forehead smattered with acne. He rubbed at his cheeks, devoid of facial hair save a few stubborn strands. So now he could add time travel to his growing list of weird shit he’d endured. Sure. Why not.  
  
On the first few Dethklok tours, before they made enough to earn separate hotel rooms, who he bunked with rotated in every city. When shacking up with Skwisgaar he was often relegated to sleeping in the bathtub, the bedroom crawling with a dozen groupies. The hedgehog-shaped water stain on the ceiling identified this as one such room.  
  
Skwisgaar entered, kicked down the toilet lid and sat. In one hand he grasped a can of shaving cream. He popped off the cap and filled his palm with the stuff; a fleck dropped onto his pantleg and vanished. He chuckled.  
  
“Don’ts worry, little Toki.” He dipped two fingers into the foam and dabbed at Toki’s face, carefully avoiding the space where his mustache should have been. “Ones of dese days, you gonna hits puberty. You voice and you ball gonna drop and it gonna opens up a whole new woirld for yous.”  
  
“Hey, fuck yous!”  
  
The bubbles of the cream popped and fizzed against his skin. Once his face was coated, Skwisgaar withdrew a razor. In reality this moment never happened––Nathan taught him to shave a few weeks after he joined the band. But Toki didn't mind. The delicate way Skwisgaar pinched and maneuvered his jaw lulled him into complacency. In the bedroom the television glimmered with a soundless display of some type of sport. (At the time, Toki was overwhelmed with glee. In America they had _competitive hugging!_ Now he realized he’d been watching football.)  
  
Skwisgaar dragged the razor across Toki’s cheek in a slow, meticulous motion. “Does you remembers de foirst show we wears corpse paint?”  
  
It was deep into the second tour when someone (Pickles, maybe?) floated the corpse paint idea. Skwisgaar had done Toki’s makeup after completing his own, huffing and complaining as he delivered a flawless facade. Toki remembered his swift hands, the burst of heat in his lower abdomen as Skwisgaar fanned his fingers beneath his cheekbones. Another inaccuracy––in reality, Murderface hovered in the background, making loud observations about Skwisgaar’s _blatant discrimination_ against Americans, hoping his laziness would be rewarded. (It was not.)  
  
“Yeah, and I says you was too goods at its, you musta hads a lot of practice!”  
  
“And you says I must haves had a lots of makes-up practice, since I was so goods at it.”  
  
“I just said thats!”  
  
“I didn’ts tells you dis for ob-vee-us reason, but I _did_ have a lots of practice.” He paused and met his eye with a reluctant smile. “In hike school I was…pretty intos de gofficks look.”  
  
Toki fought the impulse to throw his head back in laughter. “Fuck yous.”  
  
“Black eyeliners, dark lipsticks, dyed my hairs a bunch of different colors. Evens had my lip pierced for a little whiles.” He rinsed the razor in a cup of water and steadied himself on Toki’s shoulder. “Mostly did it to piss my moms off, but it didn’ts really makes a dent.”  
  
“Ams dere any evidence of dis? Wouldsn’t it be so humiliatings for yous, if somes of it leaks-ed to de press?”  
  
A hush hung thick and heady between them, broken only by the tender scrape of the razor. Skwisgaar balked when he reached his upper lip. He glanced over the soft patch of skin, the touch so light a shiver rolled down Toki’s spine.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I ODed.” He tilted Toki’s chin to work at a tricky spot on the underside of his jaw. “Whens you was gone.”  
  
A chasm opened in Toki’s guts.  
  
“I wasn’ts supposed to tells you dat.” Skwisgaar released, allowing Toki to readjust and face him fully. “Dey keeps saying I gots to keep conversation positives. But everyt’ing is _fucked_ and I’m runnings outs of gas on _positives_ so. Ja. I ODed.”  
  
“Dey who? ODed on whats? How coulds you bes so _stupid_?”  
  
“Oh don’ts _looks_ to me likes dat, likes yous some brights shining eggs-gamble of restraint. Pfft.” A beat. He set the razor down. “I knews I hit my limit, but den I just kinda––” He balled his hand into a fist and punched his open palm “––barreled rights past it.”  
  
“Skwisgaar,” Toki asked softly, “dids you does it on porpoise?”  
  
“It wasn’ts de first time in my life I wantsted to die, but it was definitely de most…most.” He pat Toki’s face with a warm, wet towel that somehow materialized. “Kinda like, eh, ams alreadys dis far adrifts. Nevers gonna finds solid grounds again. May as well just swim downs.”  
  
An image of unconscious Skwisgaar, mouth gnarled with tubes, veins bright and narrow through translucent skin, flashed through his brain. His throat sealed like a mollusk.  
  
“Skwisgaar, you can’ts says t’ings like dat. Do you knows how miserables I’d bes without yous?” Skwisgaar scratched at Toki’s scalp, then raked forward, draping his face in a curtain of hair, snickering. Toki echoed him. “Even more miserables den I ams _with_ you.”  
  
The hair fell in a heap across his eyelids, weighty and cool and unclean. Toki shook it away; as it parted a new expanse appeared. A sliver of light sliced across the room, the floor glowing with the sticky sheen of old beer. Amps piled high behind him, flanked by equipment in various states of disrepair. A ratty curtain half-concealed a deserted stage. Toki remembered this place––the tumult of nerves crackling in his chest, how he hid his shaking hands in his back pockets. He’d been so grateful to Skwisgaar for giving him a shot; he didn’t want his excitement to be mistaken for jitters. Those days, the times he’d been overwhelmed with anxiety had nothing to do with music.  
  
Skwisgaar, resplendent in white, appeared from behind the bile-colored curtain. He loomed over him (Toki hit his growth spurt late) but his body language lacked its usual haughty poise. He teased at the dark bramble of hair on Toki’s forearm.  
  
“You evers hear de phrase, hits by de thunderbolt?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Dis GMILF I you-know-whats-ed once mentions it. It whens yous looks to somebodies? And out of nowheres you realize you don’ts know how you evers did anyt’ing, before you mets dem? She say dat how she feels, first times she see her dead husbands.”  
  
“Oh. Dat’s nice. I likes dat.”  
  
His nails skimmed the soft underside of Toki's wrist. A small part of Toki was flustered by Skwisgaar’s behavior. He was not prone to affection, physical or otherwise.  
  
“At your firsts Dethklok shows, remembers hows we was crammed backstage at dats crappy clubs?”  
  
It had been the five of them, packed tight and grumbling about acoustics, awaiting their introduction. But now Nathan, Pickles and Murderface were nowhere to be seen.  
  
“I beens in lots of bands. I plays a lots of show. But dat show felts special, you knows? Likes we was ons de..precipice of somet’ing bigs? Ands I was worrieds I alreadys fucksed dat up, takes-ding in dis gutter rat whats can’ts finger pick for shits.”  
  
Toki glared.  
  
“And wes standing deres, and I t’inkings abouts de millions billions way you ruins everyt’ing I works mine wholes entires life fors. And I’s behind yous, and yous bouncing backsed and forth likes a dying fish ands I t’inkings _fuck dis guy._ ”    
  
“Fucks _dat_ guy, in fronts of mes! Right now! Who ams _you_!”  
  
“We abouts to go on, ands I beens fermentings in my bullshits all day, feelings super crappies, wants to punch yous in de liver. But den. Dey announce us. Ands you turns around. And you had dis huge, idiot smile on you face. You was _so_ excited. And den.” He held his fist over his heart and opened it slowly, pursing his lips and hissing air between his teeth. “So, dere you goes.”  
  
“You felts somet’ing for mes, dat early?” He’d felt similar rumblings, but it wasn’t until years later he recognized what it was. Even longer to act on it.  
  
“It was like somet’ing in me...unlocked.”  
  
A raging hot flush spread across his cheeks, bled down his neck to his chest. “Why ams you telling me dis? Why nows?”  
  
“It ams de truth. And I wants to be honest with you.” His fingers knit between Toki’s and braced. “I shoulds have beens honest with yous a long time ago.”  
  
“I wants to kiss yous so bad,” Toki murmured. He hooked his middle and index fingers over the top of Skwisgaar’s belt buckle and tugged his hips into his own. The only sensation he felt was Skwisgaar running his thumb over his knuckles. “Why won’ts you kiss me?”  
  
Skwisgaar’s eyes darted away and settled on something just beyond Toki’s shoulder.  
  
“ **Why** ,” he growled, eyes narrowing. “I don’ts _needs_ dat, ams staying heres.”  
  
Toki turned, but saw nothing.  
  
“Pffts, maybe dat’s tough for douchebag whats lacks any types of stamina. Nots me. I feels fucking _greats_.”  
  
“Who ams you talkings to?”  
  
His gaze flickered back, expression softening as defensiveness ebbed away. In his eyes, Toki saw a deep reserve of sadness.  
  
“Skwisgaar?”  
  
“I’m goings to come backs, okay?”  
  
“Wait, whats?”  
  
Skwisgaar pressed his hand to his cheek, his breath warm against Toki’s palm. After a moment, he released and stepped backwards. The curtain swallowed him, his contact evaporated.  
  
“Skwisgaar, where ams you goings?”  
  
He chased him out to the stage, but stumbled into a dark, meager space. The ground coalesced icy beneath him, glittering and cruel. He pawed at the walls, his scrawny limbs lacerated and raw. Tattered clothing hung loose from his body, damp with blood and sweat. Hysteria cleaved him, quickening his breath as he sank to the floor. No. No no no, he _couldn’t_ be back here. He _got out_. He abandoned that place, a remnant left to rot, something that was never supposed to come back _God it’s back and he’ll never escape it he never deserved to get out doesn’t even deserve the finality of death only the ceaseless dirge of suffering.  
  
_ “Hey.“  
  
Relief blossomed within him.  
  
“Dey mades me goes away for a littles, but I’m backs, okay? Ams here.” He took Toki’s hand in both of his own. “I’m nots going anywheres.”  
  
Skwisgaar sat beside him, or another version of Skwisgaar, anyway. He looked about 11, cropped blond curls framing his face. Once, in a rare moment of intimacy, Skwisgaar confessed his looks made him an easy mark for bullies. Toki took that comment at a backdoor brag, but now he understood. As an adult he was handsome; as a child, he was arrestingly pretty.  
  
“I has a confession to makes.”  
  
There was a disconnect, though, between his masculine voice and his youthful vessel.  
  
“Whens I quits de bands and moves back to Sweden, I mades a side-trip. I founds dat memorial whats you and you moms set up for you dads.” He smirked. “Ands I took a shit on it.”  
  
“Skwisgaar! Dat ams my dad!”  
  
“ _Fucks_ your dad, Toki. He was a bad dudes, whats did bad t’ings for bad reasons. He don’ts deserve to gets a son as good as yous.”  
  
Snow descended in languid drifts. Flakes alighted on Skwisgaar’s eyelashes.  
  
“I’m sorries,” he said. Toki felt the uncomfortable twitch of Skwisgaar’s fingers, hungry to hammer out a pattern. “For nots axing more abouts what it was like for you, backs den. You told me on you owns, but you shouldn’ts have to does dat. I knows you t’ink I don’ts care about it.”  
  
Toki furrowed his brow. “I don’ts t’ink dat.”  
  
“It ams de opposite. I t’inks about you getsting hoirt, or scared, or lonelys, and it mess me up real bads.” His breath plumed before him. “I ams a selfish coward, rights downs to my core. I’m nots strong. Like yous.”  
  
Now it was Skwisgaar who struggled to steady his breathing. Despite discovering Toki’s scars early in Dethklok’s run, not once did Skwisgaar press him for explanation. He even ran interference the handful of times the guys questioned them. During late night panic attacks or relapses into the punishment hole, Skwisgaar was steadfast. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t need to.  
  
“Being scared, or sads, or worried about you friends, dat doesn’t make you weak. Dat’s just part of beings a person. And you’re a really goods person, Skwisgaar. You mights not sees yourself dat way, but I does.” Toki inched closer, bending to catch Skwisgaar’s eye. “I has for a real longs time.”  
  
Skwisgaar didn’t reply. Above, a thin cloud dissipated. The moonlight illuminated the tufts of snow in Skwisgaar’s hair, made him iridescent.  
  
“Oh,” Toki sighed.  
  
Skwisgaar kissed him, too quick, on the cheek and lingered, running his nose along the periphery of Toki’s face.   
  
“Why you does dis to mes, huh?” His lips ghosted over the shell of Toki’s ear. “I nevers used to cares about anyt’ing before yous. I used to bes _cool_.”  
  
Toki smiled, leaned into the touch. “You was nevers cool.”  
  
Skwisgaar pulled away, and the scene melded into something new. They were in the spare, wooden church of his childhood, seated on the bare stone altar. Though the ideals behind the place lost all meaning to him, the space itself still brought him comfort. He kicked out his legs, experimenting, and saw short, stubby little things. He was small; he tongued his gum where he’d lost his first tooth.  
  
Skwisgaar was small, too. There was an intimacy in seeing how someone looked as a child. Toki could hardly reconcile that this sweet little boy, with his enormous blue eyes and rosy cheeks, and the screaming megalomaniac who once dumped a bucket of blood on his head were one and the same.  
  
“I realized I didn’ts knows what you looks like as a little tiny kids,” he said. “I seens pictures of Nathan, Pickle, even Moidaface. But not yous. Thoughts maybe you shitbag parent never takesd none. Buts, uh, I mention its to my moms? And she gots some from your moms, and sent dem to mes?”  
  
“Whens did you start talkings with your moms again?” As far as he knew, Skwisgaar hadn’t spoken with her since the ugly incident with Tyr.  
  
Skwisgaar knocked Toki’s shoulder. “You was a real cute kids.”  
  
“So was you. Now I know hows you grows-dup into such a beautiful lady. Cause you was such a pretty goil!”  
  
He anticipated a scowl or a punch for such a remark, but neither came. In fact, Skwisgaar didn’t react at all, proceeding like the insult didn’t even register.  He weaved his fingers into a strand of Toki’s hair and nudged it behind his ear.  
  
“I used to t’inks dat if we met whens we was rascally little dildos, maybe t’ings would have beens differents.”  
  
“Differents?”  
  
“Maybe we coulds have been friends.” His lips curled into a small, sad smile. “Woulds have been nice, to has one of dose.”  
  
“Ja. Woulds have.”  
  
Skwisgaar’s smile faded. His grip on Toki’s hand tightened.  
  
“I loves you. You knows dat, right?”  
  
Toki beamed. How many times had they couched it in double-speak?  How long had it weighed him down, dragged it behind him like an albatross? How often had he imagined the words that were _here_ , now. Euphoria washed over him. He could have died.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I knows. I loves you, too.”  
  
Skwisgaar’s response didn’t match. Toki recognized the tremors of anguish rumbling beneath his stoic expression. The way his mouth pinched, the deep crease between his eyebrows.  
  
“We says it for so long without saysing it, I worry yous don’t knows the real ways I feel about you. You deserves to hears it, for reals.” He exhaled–a weak, rattled sound–and Toki felt the air thread through his eyelashes. “Whats if you nevers gets to hears it?”   
  
A sob buckled him, his face crashing into Toki’s shoulder.  
  
“Whats you talking about? I hears it right now! I loves you, toos!”  
  
“I can’ts do dis anymore,” he said meekly. Hot tears blotted Toki's skin.  
  
“Skwisgaar, what’s _wrong_? I loves you!”  
  
“Please wakes up.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Skwisgaar raked his hands across Toki’s face, dragged them down his arms, across his chest, the movements more erratic and clumsy the more he sobbed.  
  
“Toki please, please wake up. I loves you. I promise, I’ll says its as much as you wants. I’ll says it everyday. I’ll says it in fronts of de guys. I’m saysing it in fronts of dem right now, I don’ts _care_ , I **_loves you_** , I just wants you wake _up_.”  
  
“The guys? Skwisgaar, we’re alone. Why ain’ts you listening to mes?!”  
  
Frustration serpented up his throat and tears stung the backs of his eyes. Seeing Skwisgaar cry always upset him, but now, when the source was a fragile little boy, he was unraveling.  
  
Skwisgaar leaned back on his knees, his expression darkening with desperation. He balled his hands into fists and brought them down, hard, on Toki’s chest.  
  
“ _Aaah!_ ”  
  
“Wakes _up_ , you fucking idiots!”  
  
He grabbed Toki’s shoulders, nails biting into the skin, and shook him violently.  
  
“Stops being an asshole and _wakes up_ , you piece of shits!”  
  
“Skwisgaar, stops! You’re hurting mes!”  
  
He tried to bat away Skwisgaar’s arms but his swats were ineffective, his body rooted to the spot. Skwisgaar was suddenly wrenched backwards, dragged down the aisle and knocking into a row of pews. He thrashed against nothing, an invisible force restraining him, but then recoiled as if slapped. He pulled his legs up to his chest and buried his face in his knees, his whole body trembling.  
  
“Just wakes up. Please.”  
  
“Skwisgaar,” Toki took a tentative step towards him, “What ams going on?”  
  
Skwisgaar shook his head, clenching fistfuls of his hair.  
  
“Looks at me. Tells me what ams happenings.”  
  
His weeping echoed through the vaulted chambers of the church. Toki swallowed hard.  
  
“ _Looks_ at me!”  
  
His punch connected with Skwisgaar’s temple, and he _still_ didn’t respond. Toki rained down a barrage of blows, each more powerful and less effective than the last.  
  
“Why! Won’ts! You! Answer! Mes!”  
  
His fist halted mid-air, the rage draining from his body. The realization crept up his spine like a moss.  
  
“You…can’ts hear me, cans you? You haven’ts been able to hears me dis whole time.” His despondency rapidly evolved into panic. “Where _am_ I?”  
  
A wailing siren sliced through the air, a high, singular note that hit Toki like a sledgehammer. The sound reverberated in his bones, the pain so severe it dropped him to his knees. Skwisgaar scuttled to his feet.  
  
“No, no no no no don’t DO dis, Toki!”  
  
He sprinted, growing younger and younger with each step. A boy, a toddler, an infant, mewling and crawling.  
  
“Stay withs me, Toki, godsdamnit, **stay withs me**.”  
  
Smaller, still: a fetus suspended in the womb, a single sperm, then poof. Gone.    
  
A scream shredded Toki’s throat. Black edged into the corners of his vision. All he could hear was the howl of the siren and then...

 

...Nothing.

 

When he came to it was quiet. Toki couldn’t hear himself breathe. He stood and realized he had returned to his full height; when he turned his head, he felt the sheath of hair move across his shoulders. He was in the center of a blank void, light extending infinitely in all directions. He called for Skwisgaar, but no sound came. A flash pulled his attention, and he squinted against a blinding light. The white glow that filled the space was drawn to it like a tide, leaving an inky darkness in its wake. Toki was drawn, too–as he moved toward it, he radiated a sense of serenity he never felt before. Is this what it meant, to be at peace? He tried to remember the happiest moments of his life. Coming to America. Dethklok. The first record. Moving into Mordhaus. Finding a sense of purpose, a home. Skwisgaar.  
  
Skwisgaar. Laughing so hard at Toki’s plans to text-prank Nathan he had to lie down on the floor, wheezing. Resting his hand on Toki’s thigh at his dad’s memorial service. Running his fingers down the channel of Toki’s spine when he thought he was asleep.  
  
This frustrating, imperfect narcissist, who never cared for anyone’s feelings but his own, left the door to his heart open a crack, locked it tight once Toki snuck in. Nothing, not even eternal bliss, could replicate that joy.  
  
Toki doubled back and was confronted by a wall of black, a steep drop of light at the ends of his feet. He stretched out his leg and brought it down into the darkness, surprised to find it solid. He tapped his toes on it, hesitant, then put his full weight into his step. He took another step. And another. He lost sight as the murky darkness enveloped him. He kept moving forward. He called out for Skwisgaar.  
  
Noise came through as though he were underwater, warbled and low. Mechanical whirls. Whispers. The shuffle of metal on tile. Crying. He called for Skwisgaar again, feeling the words taking shape in his mouth. For the first time, he became aware of the sensation of his own body. Air in his lungs. The scratch of his hair against his neck. Pain. The dry flakes of skin on his lips.  
  
_“Why is the thing doing that thing?”  
  
__“Did he juscht move?”  
  
__“Lookit, doods, I think he’s tryna say somethin’.”  
  
_ A watercolored image took gradual shape. He tried to take another step, but was immobilized, flat on his back. He focused on the image, willing it into clarity. Slow but sure, it came.    
  
“Skwisgaar?”  
  
He saw everything at once, as though in a snapshot–Pickles and Murderface, looking stricken; Charles, wearing some kind of long sleeve black dress; Abigail, in a wheelchair, chest swathed in bandages; Nathan, one hand gripping Abigail’s, the other twisted in the back of Skwisgaar’s shirt; and _Skwisgaar_ , hair dark with unwash, red-rimmed eyes an electric shade of blue, the faint impression of a handprint streaked across his face and still, somehow, the most beautiful thing Toki had ever seen.  
  
His arms felt leaden as he strained to reach. Nathan released Skwisgaar and he leaned close, grabbing Toki by the wrist and kissing the inside of his palm.    
  
“I loves you, too, Skwisgaar.” His voice was hoarse. “I loves you so much.”  
  
“Oh my _Gods._ ”  
  
He collapsed into him, tears soaking through the fabric on Toki’s chest. With great effort, Toki laid a heavy hand on Skwisgaar’s shuddering back.  
  
“Shh, ams okay. Ams here.”    
  
Nathan shifted closer to Abigail, his thigh pressing against her arm. “Welcome back, buddy.”  
  
“Whats...happen?”  
  
“You were in a coma,” Abigail said.  
  
“And then you FUCKIN’ DIED, DOOD.”  
  
“Hamburger time,” Murderface gently corrected.  
  
“No! He fuckin’ DIED. He shed his mortal coil, he was a _late rhythm guitarist_ , but he did naht go gently into that good night! You died an’ you came BACK and I am _freakin’ out man_.” Charles produced an inhaler from somewhere within the folds of his long black sleeves and Pickles scrambled to nab it and take several puffs.  
  
“How longs was I outs?”  
  
“A fucking _lifestime_.”  
  
“Almost a month,” Abigail said.  
  
“The doctors,” Charles’s voice cracked and he paused, clearing his throat before continuing. “The doctors said there was a possibility you were cognizant enough to hear us. You, ah, seemed to display the most brain activity when Skwisgaar spoke.”  
  
“Yeah, and Mischter ‘Almoscht Hoshpitalisched Himschelf With Exaushschun,’ almoscht hoshpitalisched himschelf with exaushschun. We baschically had to drag him out of here to forsche him to get schome sleep, an effort _I_ schpearheaded, you’re welcome, Schwishgaar, you _dick_.”  
  
“We, what is ‘we?’ Me an’ Nathan did everythin’, you just stood back an’ watched!”  
  
“I wasch a _schilent pillar of schupport_.”  
  
Toki lifted Skwisgaar’s chin to meet his gaze. “I can’t believes you was a goth, you stupid fucking asshole.”  
  
Skwisgaar choked out a laugh and stood, swinging his enormous leg across the bed and hoisting himself onto it. He clambered up, straddling Toki’s hips, and pulled him close. The kiss blasted through Toki’s senses like a dying star, bright and hot and all-encompassing.  
  
Charles coughed. “Skwisgaar, please be mindful of the...there's a lot of expensive equipment and…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know what, I'm going to let this one go.”  
  
Nathan thumped his fist against his chest a few times. “I have this feeling, in my body? And it’s like…rage? But the opposite?”  
  
“I think that feeling is…happinesh? Iz thish how it feelsh, to be happy?”  
  
“Da people feel like this all tha time?” Pickles ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, laughing shakily. “Fuck, this sucks! Can I trade these emotions in fer a new set? Can you return feelin’s?”  
  
“Call up the old feeling store, check their return policy,” Nathan said, miming holding a phone to his ear. Murderface mirrored the action when Nathan made a high-pitched ringing sound with his lips.  
  
“Yellooooo, thank ye for callin’ the feeling schtore,” Murderface adopted a deep, dopey voice. “What scheemsh to be the isschue?”  
  
“Yeah, hi, I’m having a problem with my recently-acquired emotions?”  
  
“Are they not funcshuning az advertisched?”  
  
“No they are functioning _exactly_ as advertised, and that is not working for me.”  
  
“Lemme talk ta him,” Pickles took the phantom phone when Nathan handed it to him. “Hey, I’d like ta speak with yer manager.”  
  
“My manager’sh on break, but let me transhfer you to cuschtomer schervice. Beep boop TRANSFER.”  
  
“Helloooooo,” Abigail held two fingers to her ear and spoke like a 1940’s telephone operator. “Feelings store customer service, how might I be of assistance?”  
  
“Yeeah, I’d like ta exchange my feelings fer my previous model. I can’t stahp smilin’ or cryin’ and neither’a those are consistent with my personal breend.”  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir. According to our files, you voided the warranty. Looks like you’re going to have to continue your lives _not_ being emotionally stunted assholes.”  
  
“Damn it!” He hung up with a flourish and turned to Charles, swiping at his eyes with his wrist band. “Ceen’t ya get us outta this?”  
  
Charles looked doubtful, holding his hands out palms up as though they supported something weighty. “Boys, I’ve gone over this feelings contract you signed several times and it would seem it is, ah, iron clad.”  
  
The bit went on in the background and Toki giggled. That weird glowing room’s version of happiness had nothing on _this._ Toki pushed Skwisgaar away, running a thumb over the fine, dark hairs that had sprung up around his mouth.  
  
“I’s gonna hold you to dat promise.”  
  
“Oh, ja?” He leaned back down to plant quick kisses along Toki’s cheek, jaw, neck, following no pattern in particular.  
  
“Ja, gonna makes you says it all de times. Considers it yous new punk-too-a-shee-uns marks. ‘Cans you pass de salt, I loves you Toki.’ ‘Looks like it gonna rains today, I loves you, Toki.’ Has I told yous lately dat I loves you Toki, I loves you Toki?’ HEY.”  
  
Skwisgaar laid a fat, wet raspberry right on Toki’s collarbone and guffawed, dropping his face into the space between Toki’s neck and shoulder. Strength coursed through Toki’s veins, hot and thick as blood.  
  
“Next times you wants my attention, can you tries to nots fucking _die,_ you drama queens?”  
  
“Hey, fu–”  
  
Skwisgaar cut him off with another kiss and Toki melted, laughter buzzing against his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been plugging away at this since August and it's fiANLLY DONE. Maybe. Sort of. I might edit it some more. This is the first piece of fiction I've finished in six years, so I'm pretty rusty. I've been working in media and it's definitely changed my style. Constructive comments are welcome! Also I wasn't sure if I should put the major character death tag on this. Welp! Thanks for reading!


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